Hi, there. Anthony from Contractors Debt Recovery haunting your screens yet again. Let’s talk today about expert reports. Now people will not pay you because they say this is defective or you might agree something is defective but you’re arguing over what the defect is worth. You are saying that this defect is worth $15,000. Your client of course is saying it’s worth $2.5 million and you owe him $1.8 million or something like that. We’ve all seen that.

So we need to establish whether there actually is a defect or defective work. If there is, what is the value of that defect? So these are the two things that need to be settled. Now instead of arguing he said, she said for nine months arguing over what it is, it’s open to you to simply get the work inspected by a court accredited expert, an expert witness, an expert in that field. I wouldn’t announce it. I would get someone in there.

If you’re arguing over tiles get an expert on tiles, get an expert on cement or concrete work or whatever it is. And I would suggest to you between $1,000 and $2,000 they could do a report on the work as to whether it’s defective or not in regards to what the requirements are under the contract and what if there is defect to be rectified. What is rectification cost?

Now if you have that document in your arsenal of weaponry then if there is a payment dispute or a Security of Payment adjudication or some kind of legal procedure or court procedure whatever it is, you are armed with some fantastic almost irrefutable evidence. You have not just any expert report by any engineer you come across but some of them are court accredited expert witnesses. Their testimony is evidence in court.

So you want to be finding them. They are listed. You can certainly go to professional association and say do you have any expert witness in this field and you’d get some names. And get that person to inspect your work. I wouldn’t announce it. Just bring them onsite and get them to do the report and call the quality assurance for your own work. If you can do that then you will have some excellent documentation up your sleeve to reject allegations of defective work and to deal with it or to at least deal with it within a reasonable value.

So just to summarize expert report help you settle defect dispute, evaluation of defect dispute. You only really want those expert witnesses that are court accredited that could appear in court as an expert witness. There is a different rather than just your mate who happens to be in the same trade. So you want court accredited witnesses.

And I wouldn’t announce it. I would just bring them into site while you got access to site and have them inspect the work and do their report. If anything that will facilitate a resolution of the dispute. All right. It’s open to you to do it, not enough contractors do it. So start doing it and you’ll find yourself in a far better position regarding defects. I’ll see next time.